Don Cayo: SFU analyst is slighted in Africa, but invited to speak at Oxford

Don Cayo, Vancouver Sun09.20.2013

Morten Jerven, an associate professor at SFU’s school for international studies, has been making waves with a book, published last spring, called Poor Numbers: How we are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It.

A Simon Fraser University academic was halfway to Addis Ababa when he was unceremoniously dumped from the speakers’ roster at a prestigious conference he was to open because his plain talk about problems in how aid is spent seems to have irked a South African bureaucrat.

Morten Jerven, an associate professor at SFU’s school for international studies, has been making waves — but not like this — with a book, published last spring, called Poor Numbers: How we are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do about It.

His thesis — peer reviewed before publication, and widely discussed and cited in academic circles since its release — is that statistics from sub-Saharan Africa are often wildly wrong. The three main sources for such stats — the World Bank, the University of Pennsylvania’s World Tables, and the Maddison Project, maintained by University of Groningen in the Netherlands — generally come up with conflicting and incompatible numbers, and the differences are only partly accounted for by differing assumptions about the purchasing power of various currencies.

As well, Jerven points out, these agencies all use different baselines that were probably inaccurate when they were established, and — because most are so out of date — have become more and more skewed as errors in annual estimates compound over time.

This is important because both aid and spending decisions are being based on bad data, a recipe for getting priorities wrong.

So it’s no surprise that the organizers of the Ethiopian conference — high-level delegates from various national statistical agencies, and some of the key people they work with in international development agencies — wanted Jerven to come.

The young father was reluctant to spend too much time away from his pregnant wife and toddler in Vancouver, so they even rejigged the conference schedule so he could address the first plenary session, then leave for more engagements he’d booked in Europe.

But when Jerven arrived at Heathrow Airport to catch a flight bound for Addis, he said, there was a text message, then a phone call telling him not to come. He said he was told Pali Lehohla, the general statistician of South Africa, had threatened to withdraw his country’s full delegation from the conference if Morten were allowed to speak.

“They told me not to be discouraged,” he told me on the phone from England. “But I was certainly disappointed.”

As near as he can tell, the South African’s objection wasn’t based on a disagreement with his findings.

And, he noted in an email, “If Pali has questions about my report and its conclusions, I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this further in hopes of strengthening the development community’s understanding of the existing problems and improvement opportunities.”

An irony is that a major point I took from Jerven’s book is that African statistical agencies are seriously underfunded and need more support to do a better job. So, with representatives of many funding agencies in the audience, he would very likely have been making a pitch for them to give more money to the agency run by the man who had him banned.

It’s not the first time Jerven feels he has been slighted as a consequence of what he wrote. An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development event where he was to speak was “postponed,” he said, and he thinks it was for similar reasons.

But Jerven has had plenty of opportunities to make his case and engage in discussions with other experts in the field. On this trip, he gave a talk in Edinburgh, met with U.K. aid officials in London, presented a paper to a meeting of his peers in Helsinki and — a feather in the cap of any academic — sat on a panel to discuss the issue at Oxford University.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.

Share

Don Cayo: SFU analyst is slighted in Africa, but invited to speak at Oxford

Saskatoon loves its Christmas lights. The Enchanted Forest draws thousands of vehicles each week. The late Bob Hinitt worked for months building his light display, which drew thousands of cars each year to Wiggins Avenue. And Scott Lambie on Clinkskill Drive has continued the tradition with more than 70,000 dancing lights (up from 50,000 last […]

When it comes to gift giving, they say it’s the thought that counts. But many are wondering if Mayor Drew Dilkens was thinking at all when he gave Olympic superstar Michael Phelps — whose battles with booze are well known — a big bottle of Canadian Club whisky.

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.